Name: Fruit Ices
Ingredients: equal parts fruit juice; equal parts water; plenty of sugar; 2 egg whites (optional); 4 cups sugar; 1 quart water; 1 egg white (for syrup)

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fruit Ices

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

Mix equal parts of fruit juice and water with plenty of sugar.
Freeze the mixture.
If desired, add the beaten whites of 2 eggs to each quart of fruit ice when it is partly frozen to increase the quantity.

Make the syrup

For finer water ices, boil 4 cups of sugar with 1 quart of water and 1 beaten egg white for 10 minutes to make syrup.
Strain the syrup.
Cool the syrup.
Mix several fruit juices with the syrup.
When the mixture is half frozen, add the beaten egg white.
Complete the freezing.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + syruptop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,995 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites: Whipped whites add air and lightness, increasing the volume of the frozen ice.
Sugar: Sweetens the ice and lowers its freezing point, keeping it softer and scoopable.
Fruit juice: Provides the main flavor and acidity of the ice.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.